Salsa (2000 film)

Synopsis

A brilliant classical pianist, 24-year-old Rémi Bonnet, renounces his career for his true passion: salsa. In Paris he takes dance lessons from an old salsa master, and decides to teach salsa himself in order to be accepted in a Cuban music band. By artificially darkening his skin with UV light treatments in a local tanning salon and faking a Latin accent he tries to "become" a genuine Cuban.

He meets the beautiful young Nathalie who becomes his student, and the results are romantically inevitable. She finds Rémi very seductive, much against the wishes of her father and her fiancé. But the deception goes wrong when she finds out who the man she thinks is her true love really is.

Salsa (dance)

Salsa is a popular form of social dance that originated in New York City with strong influences from Latin America, particularly Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Colombia. The movements of salsa have origins in Cuban Son, Cha-cha-cha, Mambo and other dance forms, and the dance, along with the salsa music, originated in the mid-1970s in New York.

Origin

The name "salsa" (mixture) has been described as a dance since the mid-1970s. The use of the term for the dance started in New York. It evolved from earlier Cuban dance forms such as Son, Son Montuno, Cha cha cha and Mambo which were popular in the Caribbean, Latin America and the Latino communities in New York since the 1940s. Salsa, like most music genres has gone through a lot of variation through the years and incorporated elements of Afro-Cuban and Afro-Caribbean dances such as Guaguanco and Pachanga. Different countries of the Caribbean and Latin America have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Colombian, Puerto Rican, L.A. and New York styles.

Plot

A retired teacher and novelist (Bruno), who survives by private tutoring, is currently writing the biography for former adult star (Tina). He then discovers that one of his students (Luca), a teenager who is on the brink of failure at school, is actually his son.

Music

The twelve tracks of the original soundtrack were produced by The Ceasars and sung by the Italian rapper Amir Issaa, then published by EMI Music Publishing Italy. The official videoclip of the film, directed by Gianluca Catania, won the 2012 Roma Videoclip Award. The Ceasars and Amir were nominated for the 2012 David di Donatello Award and Nastro d'Argento (silver ribbons) for the song “Scialla” and won the 2012 “Premio Cinema Giovane” for the best original soundtrack.

Lanterns (album)

Reception

At review aggregate website Metacritic, Lanterns has a weighted mean score of 75 out of 100, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".Lanterns reached number thirteen on the United States Top Heatseekers albums chart.